all my friends are heathens
by skyewardd
Summary: What if Ward was a double agent on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s side? AU. Ward was never Hydra. Picking up at 1x21 Ragtag. Eventual Skyeward.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: After reading so many fanfics, I decided I wanted to attempt my own. This is my first time writing in the AoS fandom and my first time in years writing fanfiction. I'm currently a college student so I won't be promising to stick to any kind of updating schedule.**

 **Anyways, I've always had the idea of Ward being a double agent on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s side. I know this has been done quite a few times, but I wanted to give my own spin on it. Some chapters will Since this is my first time writing AoS fanfiction, I'm sure I might accidentally make the characters OOC from time-to-time as I try to find my footing. Please bear with me! Please also note that I haven't watched the show beyond the first season (I'm a bitter Ward stan) so there's a large chance that I might get things a bit fudged up since I'm relying on Wikipedia and spoilers for anything after season one's events. Fitz won't have brain damage in this fic.  
**

 **Future chapters will include flashbacks, but for now, I just want to try to establish the story as well as I can and find my footing. Other recognizable MCU characters will make their appearances in this story.  
**

 **I don't have a beta so any mistakes seen are mine.**

 **Summary: What if Ward was a double agent on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s side? AU. Ward was never Hydra. Picking up at 1x21 Ragtag. Eventual Skyeward.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Marvel, Disney, or Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The fanfic title comes from the song 'Heathens' by Twenty-One Pilots.**

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The fewer that knew of Agent Grant Ward's mission, the better. Only a select few could know due to the sensitive matter at hand.

Grant Ward needed to bring John Garrett and his section of HYDRA down at all costs.

Being branded a traitor of the team – his family – wasn't what Ward wanted, but it was what he had to do. He had to make the team think he was a mole for HYDRA instead of the other way around. Their reactions needed to be genuine.

Phil Coulson was the only one from Team Bus that knew of Ward's mission, but he couldn't share that information with his team. It pained the man that he couldn't share the information with his team, but he had to do what was necessary. The team would understand that Ward did what had to be done when they could extract him.

There was one other person on the Bus that could figure out Ward's mission though and that was Skye. The hacktivist would dig and wouldn't rest until she had answers. Things weren't adding up since Ward's allegiance to HYDRA was revealed. Why wasn't Victoria Hand dead? Or Eric Koenig for that matter. And why were FitzSimmons rescued not long after being dropped in the ocean?

The questions were running rampant in Skye's mind and she needed answers. She had to have answers.

"Coulson!" Skye shouted as she barged into Coulson's hotel room without knocking first. "Care to tell me what this is about?" she asked as she plopped the stack of papers about Grant Ward on his desk. "There are a lot of redacted files in here about Ward. All redacted by S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Where did you find these, Skye? I thought you wiped everything." Coulson needed to find an out. He couldn't reveal Ward's mission – not yet. It was too soon. If Skye knew, the information was bound to find its way to the rest of the team. The rest of the team weren't supposed to know of Ward's supposed betrayal being fabricated by S.H.I.E.L.D. in an effort to bring down Hydra.

If it wasn't for Ward, S.H.I.E.L.D. wouldn't even know about Hydra. That was a story that Coulson didn't want to get into with Skye and he planned on avoiding it at all costs.

"I did some digging. I was the one who wiped everything so I was able to go back in and retrieve the information on Ward. Explain, Coulson. I know something's up. I mean, why would Ward leave Hand and the two guards alive? Not to mention Eric Koenig was also left alive. And then FitzSimmons were rescued almost immediately after being dropped – by Ward of all people – into the ocean." Skye crossed her arms over her chest as she looked at Coulson.

Coulson rubbed at his temples and looked at some of the files Skye dug up on Ward. He knew about a lot of these missions. They were missions that only Fury had clearance access to so he didn't even want to know how Skye managed to find some of those missions. The only saving grace was that they were all blocked out.

"Is Ward _really_ Hydra or is this some kind of ruse?" Skye asked when Coulson didn't answer her questions.

"You're not going to leave until you get answers, are you?" Coulson pointedly looked at Skye and an exasperated sigh left his lips when Skye shook her head no in response. "Alright, Skye. You can't let this information leave this room."

Skye's eyebrows laced with confusion at those words and she relaxed her posture slightly as she leaned up against the wall. "Fine, Coulson. Just tell me if Ward's really evil or not."

"No, Ward's not evil. He's not working for Hydra. He's working for S.H.I.E.L.D. as a double agent. The reason Hand and the guards were left alive was because Ward used a gun that worked just like an ICER but looked like an actual gun. Koenig was just knocked out by Ward when he got close to figuring out about Ward supposedly being Hydra. FitzSimmons were rescued when they were because Ward sent me this" Coulson took his cell phone for communications with Ward out of his pocket and showed Skye the text message Ward sent him about Fitzsimmons with coordinates and 'FitzSimmons ocean. Garrett asked me to cross them off. Only choice I had.' in the text message. "so that we could send in help and get them back to safety."

Skye moved from her position and sat down on one of the chairs, stretching her legs out and looking back over at Coulson. "Who all knows?"

"Fury, Hill, Hand, Romanoff, Barton, myself, and now you. I couldn't tell you or the rest of the team because it could compromise Ward's cover if too many people knew. Skye, we can't tell anyone else." Coulson knew that if anyone else knew, it could potentially ruin their entire plan. Ward needed to be the inside man if they had a fighting chance to bring down Hydra.

"Hold up a second, Coulson. What do you mean that Black Widow and Hawkeye knows?" Skye couldn't help the fangirl in her coming out at the mention of Romanoff and Barton knowing the truth about Ward's mission.

"That is a completely different story. Ward will be the one to tell you that when he's able to come back to S.H.I.E.L.D. For now, all I can say is that Ward is very good friends with Natasha and Clint." Coulson couldn't reveal all of the secrets to Skye and besides, he wanted to have some harmless fun in having Skye's thoughts otherwise occupied about why Ward was friends with two of the Avengers.

"Coulson, pleeeeeease," Skye pouted, sporting a ridiculous puppy dog look in her eyes and quivering her lip innocently. "I promise I won't tell anyone. Not even Ward. I'll let Ward tell me himself."

An amused expression crossed Coulson's face as he looked at the young agent sitting across from him. "I'm not going to betray Ward's trust like that, Skye. He's going to have a lot of explaining to do to the team when we rescue him and that ties into his story."

Seeing that Coulson's decision was final and nothing would change his mind, Skye stood up from where she was sitting and stretched slightly before heading to the door. "Alright, Coulson. So I can't go tell FitzSimmons the truth about Ward? Or May or Trip?"

"No, Skye. You can't. This is classified information and Fury would be ticked off if he knew that I told you the details regarding Ward's mission."

"Fine. I just want Ward to return safely. I'll go work on finding more Hydra bases." Skye left the Director's hotel room and went back to the room that she was sharing with Simmons. Skye grabbed her laptop and began digging around for Hydra bases, hoping to come up with a hit. They needed to be able to rescue Ward and help him take down Hydra. One man wouldn't be able do to that by himself, not even Ward. As strong and capable as Ward was, Skye knew that he wasn't going to be able to take down Hydra without any help. "Come on Hydra bases," she muttered to herself as she began typing away and employing various hacks she could use to find Hydra bases or at the very least, those who were known as serving Hydra.

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 **Author's Note: Honestly this chapter is terrible. I have ideas on where I want to go with this story, but I always struggle with first chapters. I'll try to have the second chapter up by the end of the week. The next chapter will be an AU take on 1x22: Beginning of the End. This first chapter mainly sets up the story to where Skye knows that Ward is undercover.  
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	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: I am so sorry for the delay in getting this chapter up! I meant to months ago, but then life happened so I couldn't. I was also unsure of how I really wanted to proceed with this story. I've had so many ideas for it and I wanted to incorporate too many ideas in one story instead of making separate stories or write one-shots or two-shots, but I plan on writing my other ideas out in one-shots and the like. Thankfully I didn't lay the groundwork for all of my ideas in my previous chapter so I'm going to salvage this story.**

 **I had an actual chapter written beforehand, but it was kind of choppy and not so great so I've completely re-written it. Keep in mind that I haven't watched continuously after 1x22. I've seen clips on YouTube as well as watched a selective few episodes (2x07, 2x12, 2x18, and 3x22) as well as the Framework episodes so my knowledge comes from other fanfictions, YouTube clips, and looking up information on Wikipedia. I am changing some of Ward's background from what was in the show to suit what I'm doing with this fic.**

 **I do hope that this chapter was well worth the wait! I can't promise when my next upload will be because I am a college student so I have to put my studies first (psychology major here) and deal with whatever life throws my way.**

 **I don't have a beta so any mistakes you see are courtesy of myself.**

 **Without further ado, here's chapter two! (Hey, that rhymed! Corny, I know.)**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Marvel, Disney, or Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. nor do I own the song 'Heathens' from Twentyone pilots – I just borrowed it for this fic title.**

"What are you doing, Skye?" Simmons asked as she looked over at her friend. There was a scrunch of determination written on Skye's face clear as day as the young hacker was viciously typing away. Skye was determined to bring Ward home, even planning on seeing Coulson later to see if there was a possible code word or two that Ward would be able to give to break cover when it came down to their next confrontation – whenever that would be.

"Oh, uh, just working on some hacks for Coulson," Skye quickly replied as she began shielding herself from a prying Simmons.

Simmons, sensing that something else was going on with Skye hummed in slight frustration as she sat on the bed across from the hacker. After the South Ossetia mission, she wasn't fond of the secrets that S.H.I.E.L.D. kept. Some were necessary, but not all. "Is that really all you're doing?" Simmons questioned as she crossed her legs Indian style, an inquisitive glance on her face as she looked at Skye, expecting an answer.

"I'm going to talk to Coulson about something quickly," Skye replied as a way to evade Simmons's question. As much as Skye wanted to tell her friend the truth, she knew that Coulson wouldn't be pleased. After all, Skye herself wasn't supposed to know the truth. Honestly, it was a miracle that the rest of the team hadn't figured it out yet themselves that Ward was working on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D. instead of Hydra.

"Okay," Simmons answered back as she watched Skye close the laptop and leave the room to talk to Coulson. Normally Simmons would stay back and wait for Skye to come back, but letting curiosity get the better of her, she waited until the coast was clear and stood near Coulson's door, perching her ear to where she could hear what was being said. Simmons mentally cursed herself for not having with her one of the gadgets that would make it easier to eavesdrop on what Coulson and Skye were discussing. It must be important if Skye was willing to abandon her work and dodge Simmons's questions about what she was doing. The young hacker was usually so energetic and could talk someone's ear off about all of the different hacks she was employing.

"Skye, we've talked about this. We can't tell anyone else about Ward's mission. It could compromise his cover and not give us the advantage we need against Hydra," Coulson said in exasperation as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Simmons's eyebrows laced with confusion at the mention of Ward. Ward was a traitor who knocked out Agent Koenig and dropped the pod containing herself and Fitz into the ocean.

"Yes, but hear me out, AC." Skye sat down on one of the chairs near the table facing the window as she looked over at Coulson. "We know that we can trust FitzSimmons, Tripp, and May. We don't have to tell anyone else. Just our team. That way the next time we see Ward, we don't accidentally hurt him. We need a good agent like Ward on our side."

Coulson hated it when Skye made sense. The rest of the team did deserve to know the truth. After all, the next confrontation with Ward and Garrett was inevitable. Garrett would want to bring Ward with him to rub it in the team's face that Ward betrayed them all and was working for Hydra instead of S.H.I.E.L.D., which wasn't fair for the young man. Coulson knew that Ward had attachments to the team and S.H.I.E.L.D. itself. Ward was a company man through and through who would do whatever was necessary to bring Hydra to their knees and keep S.H.I.E.L.D. afloat. It was only fair to tell the rest of the team so that it wouldn't be another big secret. "Get the rest of the team and tell them to come into my hotel room for a briefing." It was a risky move, but even Coulson could see that it was important to tell the rest of the team the truth before anything bad could happen.

Simmons was still near the door when Skye came out with Skye giving Simmons a look as she pointed her index finger into Coulson's room. "We've got a mission briefing, Simmons," she said as Simmons stepped inside of the room. Skye went on to grab Fitz and Tripp out of their room as well as get May and have the team organized in Coulson's hotel room.

"There's something I need to tell you all about Ward," Coulson began with preamble once the door to his hotel room was closed and the team was situated inside. "Ward's a double agent."

"Yeah, for Hydra," Tripp pointed out as he looked at his commanding officer.

"No, Tripp. Ward's a double agent for S.H.I.E.L.D. instead of Hydra. Why do you think Agents Hand and Koenig are still alive? What about FitzSimmons miraculously being rescued by Fury?" Coulson stretched his arms out as he watched the recognition filling the agents' faces, piecing together the bits of information that didn't make sense at the time but now were starting to make sense.

"See!" Fitz exclaimed. "I told you that people aren't just born evil." Fitz was the one who still believed in Ward even after his supposed betrayal was leaked to the team by Skye when she left Providence base with Ward.

"Is that why you had us design ICER rounds that looked like actual bullets, but still had dendrotoxin?" Simmons asked as she looked over at Coulson. This was still a lot of information to take in.

"That's correct, Simmons. Ward didn't know when the Hydra reveal would happen, but he thought it could be coming any day. He wanted to save as many S.H.I.E.L.D. agents as he could – even while undercover. Fury told him to do whatever was necessary to keep his cover and bring down Hydra, but Ward didn't want to leave the agency without plenty of agents if he could help it." Coulson drummed his fingers on his thigh as he thought best on how to explain everything without just spilling Ward's past to the team. He didn't want to break the younger agent's trust by telling the team anything that Ward wasn't comfortable with them knowing. Ward told Coulson that it was okay if he had to tell them some information about his past if his cover needed to be broken – or at least just told to the team, but Coulson knew there was some information that Ward likely didn't want them to know. "I know this is a lot to take in, but Ward is one of us. He's a good agent and we will get him back."

Tripp nodded at Coulson's words and made himself more comfortable in the chair. "A lot of undercover agents have code words," Tripp pointed out. "Does Ward have any code words that we should know about? I mean, even though we know the truth, we can't just break Ward's cover before he's ready." While May and Coulson understood the importance of that just like Tripp did, the agent wasn't sure if FitzSimmons and Skye fully understood how important it was for an undercover agent not to break their cover before they were ready.

"Yes, actually. Thanks, Tripp," Coulson said as he looked around to watch the rest of the team taking this information in stride. "Ward's undercover code words are 'family matters' and 'sprinkles'. If Ward says either of these, we need to extract him from his mission." A small part of Coulson was still amused at one of Ward's code words being sprinkles after all this time.

"Sprinkles? Why sprinkles?" Skye questioned, asking what the rest of the team was thinking, but had the decency not to ask. Of course though leave it up to Skye to ask the unasked questions. Sometimes words escaped her lips before she could control her mouth. She was getting better at it, but still not up to par with other agents' standards.

"It's a long story. I'm not going to breach Ward's trust so I'll only reveal what I can until we rescue him from Hydra. Sprinkles was a code word that Barton gave Ward as a running joke," Coulson supplied. Whatever questions he felt he could answer for the team, he would. Anything that Ward might not want them to know, he wouldn't reveal. Ward could do that himself when they extracted him.

"Barton? As in Clint Barton?" Simmons piped up as she looked at Coulson. So far everyone except for May had something to say about Ward being undercover or questions. May was as passive as ever, but her mind was doing calculations on how it slipped past her that Ward was able to keep his secret for so long on the Bus and not raise suspicions to her.

"Yes, Clint Barton. Ward and Barton met when Ward was sixteen." Coulson held up his hand to keep Skye from opening her mouth and further questioning how Ward knew an Avenger. "Ward had a rough childhood. His mother experimented on all of her children but one. It turned into resentment on Christian Ward's part. Christian Ward had Grant hurt their youngest brother Thomas and would terrorize Thomas himself, but pin the blame on Grant. Grant tried to fight what he could, but it didn't work out well. Grant's mother was experimenting for Hydra on creating super soldiers like Captain America." Coulson had a sad look on his face as he spoke about what all Grant went through as a child. "Her kids were her test subjects. Grant was the only one who seemed to have a responsive body to her experiments. Instead of a serum like the Captain's, his serum amplified the anger inside of young Grant. Grant developed these fire powers and had a hard time controlling them, but after he accidentally hurt Thomas – at Christian's insistence – Clara, Grant's mother, had enough and sent Grant off to military school." Coulson paused again to catch his breath and watched as the team's faces started falling at Grant's childhood. Even May looked a bit sad about what Grant had to endure.

"Grant thrived at military school with following orders and doing what was expected of him. He was talented at marksmanship and attracted the attention of S.H.I.E.L.D. as a possible recruit. Grant got a call when he was fifteen from his sister. She was crying hysterically into the phone at how Christian hurt Thomas so badly that Thomas was in the hospital. Grant was so angry that he stole a superior officer's car and drove over one thousand miles home and set fire on the house using his powers. Christian was inside, but Grant didn't know it." Coulson paused again to catch his breath as he explained what the team needed to know about Grant's past. "The quartermaster had ties to Hydra so he arranged for John Garrett to meet Grant in juvie. From what Ward told me, Garrett gave him ten seconds to decide – either go with Garrett or stay in juvie. Ward chose to go with Garrett since Garrett promised to teach Ward how to be a man and not let anyone hurt him again."

Skye's face fell at finding out more of Grant's past. Grant had been through so much, but stayed silent about it all. She hadn't even seem him use his powers once, meaning that he must have great control over them now – probably thanks to Barton and Romanoff's help.

"Garrett dropped Ward off in the woods and went back to check on him a few times after six months. Ward met Barton a year after being isolated in the woods with only a dog for company and Garrett's short visits. Ward stole from Barton so Barton confronted the young teenager and offered to help him with his powers after he saw Ward accidentally use them. Barton told Fury who put Garrett on an undercover mission that lasted four years where Garrett couldn't leave his mission whatsoever. During that time, Ward trained with Barton – later on Romanoff was added to the mix. Ward got therapy and accepted into S.H.I.E.L.D. with John Garrett as his Supervising Officer." Coulson paused again to take another breath. "Something seemed off about Garrett so Fury gave Ward a mission – find out what Garrett was up to. Ward accepted and let Garrett tell him about Hydra and joined Hydra under Fury's orders to find out how deep Hydra went within S.H.I.E.L.D. and to figure out what Hydra's end game even was."

"How and when did you find out about Ward's mission? And who all knows?" Tripp asked, taking in all of the information. Tripp's opinion on Ward was changing to awe at how the fellow specialist managed to fool Hydra for this long.

"Fury, Hill, Barton, Romanoff, Hand, and I were told. Fury, Hill, Barton, and Romanoff were the only ones who initially knew. I wasn't told until just before the Avengers were assembled. Hand was told when we needed her to trust Ward not to kill her in part of our plan to find out what Garrett's up to now."

"So what is Garrett up to now?" Skye asked after a beat, once again voicing the question everyone else had but was keeping silent about.

"He's trying to recreate the GH-325 formula. Garrett turned Hydra because S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn't send med evac to him on a mission. He vowed revenge on S.H.I.E.L.D. for leaving him to die and joined Hydra. He was the first of Project Deathlok, but his organs are failing." Coulson knew the information that was passed to him from Fury when he was caught up to speed on Ward's mission. It was part of why Ward had even been chosen as the team's specialist. "The files are at Cybertek. Can you hack into them, Skye?" Coulson asked his younger agent as she continued digesting the information.

"Of course. Shouldn't take too much time," Skye replied as she left Coulson's room long enough to grab her laptop and go back into the senior agent's room and began employing various hacks. "I'm not getting anything. It's like they don't have a system of any kind unless everything is filed away on paper instead of digitally. That's the only way to keep a hacker out."

"It looks like we're infiltrating Cybertek then to get our hands on Project Deathlok." Coulson scratched at the back of his neck as he thought about whether or not Ward would like just how much information he gave to the team about his mission. "If Ward's there, we'll extract him then. May and Tripp, I'll need you two to take down Ward and make it look like we're bringing him in. I don't want to completely break Ward's cover since we might be able to use that cover in the future to infiltrate Hydra bases." Coulson was already thinking ahead of the game and wanted to make sure that Ward's cover wouldn't be spectacularly blown unless it had to be. "In the event we can't do that, we'll just bring Ward back. There might be a confrontation with John Garrett that we have to be prepared for, especially if he has been successful at recreating the GH formula. Everyone, take an hour to digest this information about Ward then we'll meet again and plan our next move."

 **Author's Note: I hope this chapter is okay! I know I did go into a good bit of detail about Ward's past, but there are still some bits that haven't been revealed yet. ;) I hope to have a chapter up within the next week or two, but I can't promise anything. I will try not to go months again without an update, though.**


	3. Hiatus

Hey everyone.

I wish I was updating this story with a chapter or good news in general, but unfortunately that's not the case. At this current point in time, I'm going to be putting this story on hiatus. My brother passed away at the end of May so I haven't been in the proper head space to write, especially given some of the details that I planned on continuing for this story.

With that said, I may return to this story or I may not return to this story. We'll see what happens, but I'm not going to make any promises. The only promise I can give is that I will be publishing one shots and short stories once I'm in a better space to write.

I hope you all are enjoying the month of September!


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